People search high & low for ways to pay for college. At the end of the day the most common way to pay for college is via student loans. There are literally hundreds upon hundreds of student loan companies out there. Added to that is the thousands upon thousands of banks willing to offer student loans at much higher interest rates.

Once people "shop around" for the loan they feel is in their best interest most people end up picking Sallie Mae. Sallie Mae usually offers the best interest rates available. By best obviously I mean the lowest interest rate you can find, usually somewhere between 1% & 4%. However most people sign up for loans not truly understanding what they are doing. They fail to look at contract terms, they fail to read to the fine print & so on.

At the end of the day the best advice to give any one is to make sure they have a plan when dealing with their student loans. When you have a student loan any where interest accumulates over time. They give you the opportunity to pay the interest that has accumulated each month. It can be anywhere from $20 to $250 depending on how big your loan is & if you've been paying the interest each month. Here is where preparation comes in. Find a way to get a job at the college quickly. This way once the interest starts piling up you are able to "throw money" at it. If the interest each month is $20 pay them $40 or $50. This will not only eliminate extra interest accumulating quickly, but it will also allow you to pay off the loan quicker.

The best thing you can do is create an account online with Sallie Mae so that you may view all your information online at your convenience. You can even setup your account to have Sallie Mae take a certain amount of money out of your account every month.

To help you out Sallie Mae has acquired UPromise. UPromise allows you to receive cash back for purchases you'd make every day any way. Then you can apply the funds in your UPromise account to your Sallie Mae loans. Say mom & dad eat out at Olive Garden with friends every Friday night. If Olive Garden is one of the many companies associated with UPromise & your parents spend $100 each Friday you could theoretically have $2 every Friday put in your UPromise account. Not much after 1 week, but it looks pretty good after a year, since it'd be $104. Then Sallie Mae will allow you to put that towards your student loans.

There are plenty of ways to conquer Sallie Mae student loan repayment as I've specified. The most important thing to do is keep on top of your loans & try your best to pay more than the monthly payments due.